


Home

by DireFennec



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, Shingeki no kyojin spoilers, chapter 84 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 14:10:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14570700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DireFennec/pseuds/DireFennec
Summary: The Scouting Legion returns to Shiganshina to finally lay their fallen soldiers to rest.





	Home

Levi glanced over his shoulder to look at the wooden box secured behind him as his horse picked its way through the ruins of Shiganshina. The box was dark and plain, except for the bright blue and white wings emblazoned on its lid. Levi couldn’t believe its size when he first saw it. It seemed far too small.

He could see the rest of the Scouts far behind him. He had urged his horse forward as soon as the gate of Wall Rose opened, ignoring Hanji’s orders to stay with them.

He didn’t have to search for the house, one of the few in Shiganshina still intact, he remembered exactly where it was. He had taken the trip in his nightmares following the battle of Shiganshina, over and over, each time finding something different in the quiet attic room. Sometimes he found nothing but silence and dust, all memory of Erwin’s existence gone. Sometimes the body on the bed awoke and clawed at his throat with a cold, dead hand, screaming at him, blaming him. But that wasn’t Erwin. 

The front door opened with a long, high groan. The house was unnaturally silent and dust clung to the floors and surfaces like a pall. It wasn’t the place for Erwin. It was all he could provide at the time, but he could give him better now. Levi clutched the box as he crept up the stairs. Each step announced his presence with a loud creak. He stopped outside the bedroom. The door was closed, as he’d left it. He hesitated for a moment with his hand on the handle. He pushed the thoughts of nightmares away, they weren’t real, they were his own fears and guilt. That wasn’t Erwin. 

He unconsciously held his breath and pushed the door open. The room was still, completely quiet and devoid of all life. Just as he’d left it.

Erwin was still on the bed, hand over his chest, though only bones remained now. Much of the uniform was gone. Erwin’s boots and the straps of his manoeuvring gear survived, though his cape was threadbare and no longer covered the body underneath. 

After a moment Levi stopped staring at the body and closed the distance between them. He set the box down carefully on the nightstand by the bed. The vase no longer contained the flowers he had left.

Levi raised his hand to take the cape from the body but hesitated before he reached it. He felt like he was a disturbance in the room, that if he touched the body it would fall apart or crumble to dust. He finally rested his hand on top of Erwin’s, like he had done hundreds of times before on late nights while trying to convince him to stop writing and planning and worrying and just get some sleep already. He carefully moved the bones aside for now and removed the cape, straps and boots from the body. 

He slowly packed the bones into the box but stopped when he reached the ribs. Cracks were visible in them and the curve of the lower ribs ended with sudden jagged edges where the rest should be. Levi’s gaze flicked to Erwin’s missing arm. He clenched his teeth. Here was physical proof of the sacrifices Erwin made for the ungrateful masses behind the wall, and still he was vilified. Rage built in Levi at the sight of it, but it was cold now, no longer a violent, burning tumult that consumed him, as it had been in the weeks following Erwin’s death. It simply didn’t matter anymore, Erwin didn’t have to suffer it now.

The tension left Levi as he continued moving the bones into the box until only the skull was left. Levi picked it up in both hands and looked into its lifeless sockets. He could have spent hours looking into the bright blue eyes that were once there, although he would never admit to something so stupid. 

He felt something of a disconnection with the body, as though it couldn’t possibly be Erwin. It couldn’t possibly have been the inspiring, commanding presence he remembered. It couldn’t have once been the tall, strong man that had fought and bled and sacrificed for his own dream and for humanity’s survival, and yet it had been. 

Levi pressed his forehead against the skulls.

“We’re going home.”


End file.
